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You better believe it! From the makers of complex, super thick rule book, (mostly) wargame makers Avalon Hill came this gem, long before CCGs!

It's really not difficult to learn, except that by today's standards, you have to get used to the old style of rules which looks really dry and complicated.

What's great is that you can create you own scenarios as you please, and the game plays really smoothly and fast!

Your squad vs my squad, each moving towards each other trying to knock off the other! Its exciting, has no dice (uses random numbers from stack of cards) and great use of terrain! Bottom line, even though there is no board, you quite really can visualize your squad in a bunker, moving across marsh, etc, etc.

Up Front simulates squad-level combat in WWII, with a level of detail and historical accuracy that is befitting of all good Avalon Hill wargames of yore. The amazing thing is that it's a card game! And a highly playable one, at that.

Each player commands an opposing squad of soldiers. Each soldier is represented by a card containing weapon statistics and other detailed info.

At the start of the game, the soldier cards are laid out on the table, and the players fill their hands with action cards. The action cards allow your squads to move, shoot, rally, take cover, etc. A clever system of tracking relative distance allows opposing squads to close in on each other, and even perform flanking maneuvers without physically moving around on the table top.

Make no mistake, this is a wargame, and not [page scan/se=0534/sf=category/fi=stockall.asc/ml=20]Magic: The Gathering. The action cards are dense with information, statistics, and conditional clauses, and the rulebook is a typical Avalon Hill wargame tome. Nonetheless, Up Front is relatively easy to learn, and it is definitely fun to play. Games are fast paced and filled with a high degree of tension and excitement.

The one failing of this game is in its attempt to simulate vehicles. In my opinion, the game should've stopped at man-to-man combat, which it does very well, and not bothered with vehicles, which add a significant amount of rules complexity for very little payoff.

Fortunately, you don't have to play with vehicles if you don't want to. In my gaming group, we always ignored vehicles when generating scenarios.

Up Front is unique in its blend of wargame detail and card game playability. If you run across a copy of it, I highly recommend snatching it up.

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